This blog will present news items about the motion picture business, with emphasis on lower budget, independent film in most cases. Some reviews or commentaries on specific films, with emphasis on significance (artistic or political) or comparison, are presented. Note: No one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"!

About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

"The Longest Ride" is another layered love story from Sparks, with a touch of Douglas Sirk

George Tillman’s new layered melodrama “The Longest Ride”,
based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks (“The Notebook”) comes across as a 1950s
Douglas Sirk piece. It also provides a
nice lesson in good karma.

The outer story, in present day, concerns a graduating
college senior Sophia (Britt Robertson), expecting a paid internship in an art
museum in New York, meets a bronco rider Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood, son of
Clint Eastwood and an emerging star on his own, which is what Clint wants) at a
rodeo. They quickly start a romance.

Luke has a lot of street smarts, and also his own medical
history (not very visible) that makes his continuing to ride dangerous. Returning from a rodeo at night in a
thunderstorm, Luke sees a car in front run off the road. Luke rescues the driver, Ira (Alan Alda) and
Sophia, at Ira’s begging, saves a basket of letters before the car explodes.

Soon the couple befriends Ira, now a widower. The letters (and again, we have the
handwritten letter used as a movie or novel plot conduit, so common in English
literature) tell the story of another challenged marriage between Ira (Jack
Huston when young) and Ruth (Oona Chaplin). Just before Pearl Harbor, Ruth told Ira she
wanted a big family with lots of kids.
When Ira goes to war, he rescues another soldier in the trenches in
France. He gets wounded, and after the
wound gets infected, he is unable to father children.

The film is not specific as to the medical details, as to
whether Ira is in anyway disfigured or impotent. That is an idea that mattered
to me in the days I pondered my own exposure and involvement with the military
draft and deferments. It can also be
socially destructive; a society in which
couples don’t stand together when challenged can become vulnerable to enemies
(a major point when I was at NIH in 1962).

The couple tries to adopt a child, and is rebuffed at even that,
after Ruth has become a grade school teacher.
So their marriage becomes a self-testament. But they build a big art collection in
Charlotte, NC and that becomes a big point of karma for the film.

Eventually, Ira passes away, but the aftermath brings the
new couple together.

There are some geographical issues. Sophia goes to Wake Forest, and Greensboro
(where Ira recuperates) is some distance away.
The mountains, where Luke has his cabin, are even farther away. The credits say that some of the outdoor work
was shot in New York State as well as North Carolina.

Eastwood looks a lot like Zac Efron, and even acts a bit
like him. He looks maybe a tad older
(the real actor was 28 as the film as shot).
The physical intimacy of the film grows gradually. Eastwood’s chest hair appears to be clipped
short, perhaps. Actors go through a lot,
at least some of them do. The movie
marquee posters make Eastwood look “younger” than in the actual film.

My own novel and a major screenplay depend on "layering" through various media, and would present a problem of managing the "look" to keep the context clear. In this film, the backstory is shot with slightly deeper hues. Everything stays full widescreen anamorphic.

The official site is here for “Fox 2000” and a regular 20th Century Fox release. (When will it become 21st?). I saw the film at the AMC Courthourse in Arlington VA, sold out, and the audience liked it (mostly young couples).

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